With so many startup business ideas, it can be hard to figure out which is worth pursuing. You’ll want to create a store in a niche that’s not only profitable but also great for the long-term. You may notice that a lot of the business ideas on this list have been growing in popularity recently. While jumping on a new trend can sometimes be risky – it can also be highly rewarding. Some of the ecommerce business ideas on this list have always been popular for a long time making it more competitive but less risky. However, all the niche examples on this list will help make you money.

#1: Selfie Drones – Business Ideas

The drone niche is one of the best niche examples for a growing trend. Approximately 600,000 drones are expected to be used in the air by 2018. From drones delivering packages to farmers checking out their crops to videographers getting the best aerial shot, there’s a growing demand and interest in this niche market. So much so that by 2020, the industry is expected to grow to $127 billion. Selfie drones have seen recent surges in popularity making them the drone you should consider selling for your business idea. Selfie drones allow people to easily take pictures of themselves from different angles without needing a selfie stick.

If you decide to pursue the drone niche, you’ll want to figure out which market to target. You can dropship selfie drones to millennials who love taking selfies and taking cool pictures when they travel. When marketing your brand, you’ll want to showcase a collection of cool images that were shot with selfie drones. You can also dropship toy drones catered to children or hobbyists. When marketing this type of sub-niche, you’ll want to showcase the experience of how fun it is to fly a drone around. You can also dropship drones with cameras that can be used to monitor crops, record aerial shots for weddings or commercial projects. With this type of niche market, you’ll want to ensure you choose higher-end drones, which will likely cost more money, as your demographic cares about video and image quality.

#2: HIIT Equipment – Niche Examples

HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training) workouts are one of the most popular niche examples in the fitness realm. The fitness and weight loss niches tend to be stable and profitable for many entrepreneurs. Those who are looking to do HIIT workouts tend to need equipment like weights, jump ropes, medicine balls, fitness mats and more.

You can dropship HIIT equipment from AliExpress. You likely won’t find any results on AliExpress under HIIT equipment, you’ll need to search for individual products such as medicine balls, ankle weights, jump rope and more. Ranking for HIIT equipment should be fairly simple as it isn’t too competitive. You can run Google Ads since most of the products are search based. However, if you create video content around your brand, you can likely succeed with Facebook Ads as well.

#3: Smartwatches – Startup Ideas

By 2018, there are expected to be 141 million unit sales of smartwatches around the world.
By 2018, the smartwatch industry is expected to shoot up to an astonishing $19 billion worldwide.
Yet, by 2019, it’s expected to earn $53.2 billion in sales revenue. Whether it’s being used to track steps or plan your day, there will likely continue to be innovation in this niche.

When it comes to to smartwatch niche market, you can dropship a range of AliExpress products. On AliExpress, you can dropship smartwatches with heart rate monitoring which would appeal to those interest in fitness or heart patients. You can also dropship smartwatches with GPS for those who like travelling, hiking or doing outdoor activities. Dropshippers can dropship AliExpress’ smartwatches with cameras for those who like taking pictures or selfies. How you choose to market your brand and who you choose to target can open up a range of possibilities for you.

#4: Mirrorless Camera – Startup Business Ideas

In 2015, mirrorless camera sales were up by 16.5% in the United States resulting in lower DSLR sales. During that time, Canon’s sales were drastically reduced by 21% due to the popularity of mirrorless cameras as they had a collection of DSLR cameras which weren’t performing as well. Despite the high number of people using their phones as cameras, mirrorless cameras have somehow grown and created their own niche market.

With most people using their high-quality phone cameras to take pictures, there’s somehow a growing trend towards mirrorless cameras. Mirrorless cameras are more lightweight and compact than DSLRs which make them ideal for photographers who don’t want to lug around bulky products. When growing your mirrorless camera store, you’ll want to emphasize the benefits of owning a mirrorless camera instead of a DSLR. You’ll also want to write content about why you should use a mirrorless camera instead of your smartphone for taking pictures.

#5: Dash Cam – Business Startup Ideas

Dash cams are one of those startup business ideas that’ll continue to grow in popularity because they’re practical while also having a viral element to them. In 2014, dam cash sales increased by 918% in the United Kingdom because of the viral dash cam videos taken in Russia. Many insurance companies now accept dash cam videos in claims to be used as evidence and some may even lower your insurance premium if you have one installed in your car. By 2020, the industry is anticipated to be worth $4.03 billion worldwide.

If you decide to create a dash cam business, you can dropship from a wide range of AliExpress products. The best way to build up your brand is to show how beneficial your product is. You can regularly post videos on your blog or social media of crazy events that happened but were caught on dash cams. If you decide to do this, you need to make sure you blur out faces and license plates. You’ll also want to have permission from the person who recorded the video to share it. By building out your brand, when people search ‘dash cam videos funny’ or ‘dash cam videos 2017’ one of your videos is likely to pop-up if you post regularly. Content creating – blog posts to videos – can help grow this business.

#6: Wireless Earphones – Ecommerce Business Ideas

The wireless earphone market is expected to grow by a rate of 7.0% according to a 2016 report. Wireless headphones currently own 31% of the market share which is expected to continue seeing growth. The retail market for the headphone industry is expected to grow to $15.8 billion by 2025 making it worthwhile for entrepreneurs to start businesses in this niche.

Wireless earphones are growing in popularity due to the advancement in technology such as Bluetooth and wifi. However, there’s also a convenience component to them. You can dropship wireless earphones from AliExpress, with many suppliers offering free ePacket shipping making it affordable for consumers. When building a brand, you’ll want to create articles about wireless earphones and different target audiences who’d use them. You also want to showcase the convenience of having them. You could create videos of people using them while they run, commute to work or take it out of their backpacks without having to untangle them.

#7: Matcha Tea – Business Ideas

Tea is the second most popular drink after water. Approximately 80% of American households have tea in their home. There are 158 million daily tea drinkers showcasing the growth potential for a niche tea store. Matcha tea has rapidly grown in popularity due to its various nutritional benefits. For example, it’s packed with antioxidants, helps improve your metabolism, naturally detoxes the body, and more. People also make desserts and other recipes with their matcha tea showing the drinks’ versatility. You can dropship matcha tea and tea accessories from AliExpress using Oberlo. You’ll find a variety of matcha products from the tea itself to powder whisks. You can also sell tea cups and other drinkware accessories. When it comes to marketing, you can create blog and video content around matcha tea recipes. You can work on a long term search engine optimization startegy to rank organically for your products. However, you can also run Facebook ads to get immediate sales.

#8: Beard Oil – Niche Examples

One of the most popular niche examples targeting men is beard oil as the grooming industry makes approximately $6 billion in annual sales. There are many successful stories of flourishing beard companies making tens of thousands in sales each month. Other companies are selling hundreds of thousands worth of beard grooming products each year. Approximately 39% of American men have beards which is an increase of 15% from 2012. The men’s toiletries industry is worth approximately $3.4 billion surpassing the men’s shaving industry by over $1 billion.

While the beard oil niche market is competitive, there’s still room for new players. You can grow your brand by dropshipping grooming products and beard oils. You should considered buying a few products to take your own professional images. It’ll help position your brand as a reputable beard oil company. Having before and after beard pictures can help you sell your products to help your customers envision having your products. Your social media platforms should have tons of pictures of perfectly groomed beards for people to use as inspiration. It’ll allow you to grow organically.

#9: Phone Case – Startup Ideas

The phone accessories industry may be worth as much as $121.72 billion by 2025. While it may include products other than phone cases, it still offers a lot of flexibility for you as an entrepreneur should you decide to tap this niche market. Notably, the phone case market accounts for 20.5% of the phone accessories industry making it a profitable niche regardless.

While there are a lot of phone case businesses, there’s still room for new stores to emerge. You can dropship from a wide-range of AliExpress products. You can dropship iPhone phonecases, Samsung phonecases, wallet phonecases, and more. When you target women, you can have feminine phonecases such as floral patterns, cute animals, lace or marble patterns. Or you can target those who travel for work such as salespeople or entrepreneurs and market charging phonecases.

#10: Power Bank – Startup Business Ideas

By 2022, the power bank industry is expected to climb to $25.16 billion USD. A power bank is a mobile charger which is charged in advance for a later use. It’s a great product for those who plan to be in a remote location with limited access to electrical outlets. With an astounding 80% of internet users owning a mobile device, accessories like power banks are expected to continue growing in popularity.

You can dropship power banks using the Oberlo app. You can do a combination of search based marketing (Google ads) with Facebook ads to grow your store’s popularity. You can also expand into other popular mobile accessories niches such as phone cases. Having a store focused on mobile electronics that are growing in popularity can prove to be one of the most profitable ecommerce business ideas.

#11: Resistance Bands – Business Startup Ideas

Globally, there are around 138.75 million people who are part of a health club or gym. If you’re looking for an evergreen niche, starting a store in the fitness niche is your best bet. There’s been a growing popularity in resistance bands. Whether you’re working out at your home gym or following along to a fitness dvd, resistance bands are popular in a range of workouts making them a great addition to an online store or as a standalone store. There’s been steady interest in resistance bands for years with a notable slight growth within the past year. You can dropship resistance bands on AliExpress. Depending on the audience you plan to serve, you’ll be able to easily offer other relevant products within the fitness niche to ensure you have a diverse product selection.To market your resistance bands, you’ll need to show some customers how to use them making video marketing an effective content marketing idea for your store. You can use your videos as a Facebook ad to draw more eyes to your page. If you plan on doing content marketing, you can even create a fitness channel on YouTube where every video you create uses the resistance bands you sell.

#12: Enamel Pins – Business Startup Ideas

Enamel pins, one the most popular ecommerce business ideas, have been exploding in popularity over the past two years with no signs of slowing down. From popular emojis to food, you can find an enamel pin that suits your customers’ diverse interests. They allow your customers to express themselves with unique fashion art they can easily clip onto an outfit. By offering a quirky or relatable selection of enamel pins to your customer, you’ll be better able to monetize your store. You can also expand into other relevant niche categories such as accessories like sunglasses, shoes, jackets, and more. Keep your brand name generic like ban.do to allow you to grow into other categories as your brand explodes in popularity.

You can easily dropship enamel pins using Oberlo’s app. As enamel pins are visually appealing, Instagram tends to work best when marketing these types of products. You can do influencer marketing. Influencers can take pictures wearing your enamel pins and sharing pictures with their audience. You can also post your enamel pins on colorful backgrounds, lay them out in a patterned design and show them worn by your customers to build up your social media following. Use several hashtags to find new customers and grow your followers.

The backpack niche has been steadily growing over the years making it one of the best startup business ideas. Backpacks are no longer just for students. Employees carrying laptops to and from work, travellers and more use backpacks regularly. You’ll notice a trend increase within men’s backpacks, drawstring bag, women’s handbags, women’s backpacks and more. The backpack niche is a viable business startup idea since there’s a diverse selection of bags that have been growing in popularity. You can eventually expand into luggage which has also been growing in recent years as well.

Instagram and Facebook would likely work well for your backpack brand. You’ll want to start marketing in July or August to capitalize on back to school sales. Keep in mind that children’s backpacks have been decreasing in popularity so targeting students attending college would likely work best. You can do some Instagram marketing where you have college-aged influencers wearing and promoting your backpack. Offer influencers a commission for every referral through their link to keep your costs low while ensuring sales. Be sure to also target people by their university and age to find your audience on Facebook.

#14: Cateye Sunglasses – Business Startup Ideas

If you’re looking to launch a startup business, the cateye sunglasses niche might be perfect for you. The niche tends to have steady and reliable growth but has seen an uptick in popularity recently making it a trend worth jumping onto. Over 3.5 billion sunglasses are sold each year globally. While your online store doesn’t have to sell exclusively cateye sunglasses, you should put an emphasis on those products. You can eventually expand into other product categories like watches, scarves, and seasonal accessories to capitalize on year round sales.

When marketing cateye sunglasses, you’ll likely want to tap into Instagram influencer marketing. You can offer influencers a commission for selling your sunglasses so that you only pay a fee for the products they sold rather than a post on their page. You’ll also want to try Facebook ads likely targeting fans of other sunglasses brands. Partnering with a relevant brand can also help you grow your sales such as a sunscreen or beach accessories brand. You can also reach out to publications such as women’s magazines and offer them a free sample to be included on their website or magazine.

#15: Dad Hats – Ecommerce Business Ideas

Dad hats have been skyrocketing in popularity. As baseball hats are one of the most popular dad hats around, not surprisingly, there are over 43 million baseball hats sold each year. With the hat industry making over $2 billion in revenue every year, this niche isn’t going away anytime soon. You can eventually expand into other categories within the men’s accessories and apparel niche selling watches, sunglasses, or men’s t-shirts. This will allow you to grow your store’s revenue while still serving your audience.

You can market your dad hat brand on Instagram, Facebook and with search engine optimization (SEO). SEO will take a few months before you start ranking for your keywords. However, if done correctly you can generate organic sales that help keep your ad costs low. When it comes to Instagram and Facebook, there’s room to make your brand stand out from your competition. Many dad hat brands add pictures of the hat by itself which doesn’t draw much attention. Paying a commission to male/dad influencers to wear your hat and share it with their audience can help build a bigger brand presence. Aim to create lifestyle shots of people wearing your hats.

#16: Women’s Pumps – Business Ideas

The women’s pumps niche has been steadily increasing making it one of the most stable ecommerce business ideas. The stable niche has been popular for several years making it one of the best long-term business ideas. In spring 2016, over 84 million people had bought women’s shoes within the past 12 months. Over 34% of affluent households spent $250 or more on women’s shoes in 2016. It’s safe to assume that women are either buying expensive shoes or buying higher quantities of them. Either way, this will help ensure your business stays profitable within your niche. The great thing about this startup business idea is that you don’t need to only sell women’s pumps but can expand into other footwear and accessories like socks, scarves and other seasonal products.

To monetize your women’s pumps brand, you can market your store on Instagram. You can use shoe brands like Katy Perry Collections as inspiration for how to create graphics, what types of pictures and videos to add to your page. You can also use influencers to promote your brand for you to their audiences offering a commission for each sale they bring in. Facebook ads can also work well for your shoe brand depending on how you brand your store. Lifestyle shots like Payless ShoeSource and shoes on colored backgrounds can capture attention better than an ad with a pair of shoes on a plain white background.

#17: Lace Bras – Startup Ideas

The lace bra niche has been steady for years but in recent months is starting to see some growth. The niche will likely to continue to climb. The lingerie industry has increasing sales making $82.1 billion in revenue in 2016. Your lace bra store can also include other types of bras, lingerie, panties, and women’s accessories to ensure strong profits. Bras are the most popular lingerie that people buy making up over 55% of sales within the industry.

Marketing a lace bra on your online store will require you to use your creativity. Ads with nudity usually get shut down on Facebook ads. You’ll need to use images of your lace bras on vibrant colored backgrounds and styled in fun ways for your ad to be accepted and gain traction. You might want to model your Facebook marketing after brands like La Senza and Victoria’s Secret.

#18: Pool Inflatables – Startup Business Ideas

With celebrities like Taylor Swift, Kendall Jenner, Zooey Deschanel and more showing off their love of pool inflatables in the summer, it’s no wonder pool inflatables keep growing in popularity. Over the past few weeks, pool inflatables have been showing strong growth. While this seasonal product tends to be most popular in the summer, with a strong marketing push you can expect strong sales even if only for a few months at a time. If you want to capitalize on year round growth you can choose to sell other seasonal items for each season throughout the year. Influencer marketing and Facebook ads work well for this niche since pool inflatables are a great impulse buy product. You can offer a free inflatable to influencers who post pictures of your product and offer a commission for sales that come from their link. You can then use the pictures from your influencers in your Facebook ads to increase product sales. You’ll want to also include customer photos to your website to better optimize your product page so that customers know what they can expect. You can use brands like FUNBOY for your marketing inspiration.

#19: Frill Dress – Business Startup Ideas

If you want to start a fashion store, frill has been growing in popularity this past year. From frill dresses to frill tops to frill pants, this is one of the hottest trends right now. Online fashion stores are adding frill collections to cash in on the newest trend. The great thing about this niche is that you don’t need to limit your products to only include frill but can add it as a product collection to your current fashion store.

You can dropship a variety of frill dresses, tops and more from AliExpress. Optimizing your product collection or store for search traffic will help customers find your frill clothing. You can also market your products on Facebook, Instagram and other social networks the same way you’d market a fashion brand. You’ll likely want to include lifestyle shots or pictures of your customers wearing the frill outfits in your social media. You can use Suzy Shier’s frill collection for inspiration for your online store.

#20: Bodysuit – Ecommerce Business Ideas

Bodysuits used to be worn as lingerie but have made their way into mainstream fashion. Nowadays, women wear body suits as tops. You’ll find a range of sexy bodysuits which are great for a night out or as lingerie. However, you can also find a selection of everyday wear bodysuits. Despite their growing popularity, peak season tends to be around Halloween. You can dropship bodysuits on AliExpress for your online fashion store. If you want to find everyday bodysuits, you’ll need to search for bodysuit fashion where you’ll find a diverse collection of bodysuits. As a fashion outfit, you’ll likely want to make bodysuits a collection in your store to capitalize on the trend. While you can create a store that exclusively sells bodysuits, you’ll want to keep the brand name generic so that you can eventually expand into other product categories within fashion as your brand grows in popularity. You can use Forever 21 for inspiration for your bodysuit brand.

Which of the niche examples do you want to try out? Share your suggestions for startup business ideas in the comments to help other entrepreneurs.

Nicole Martins Ferreira

Nicole Martins Ferreira is a self-employed eCommerce entrepreneur. Her passion for eCommerce is so strong that she works on her website 7 days a week and has never been happier. She is committed to helping others succeed and is constantly learning new tricks to provide more value to entrepreneurs. Follow Nicole on Twitter at @NicoleMarFer

Pick a niche you’re passionate about and roll with it. And don’t get distracted with other niches until that one is sustainable and bringing in money. Having laser focus will get you where you want to go!

Jan Fibich

Thank you.
I’m trying to get started. The article is like a diamond donated to me.
Jan Fibich

thanks for the article Nicole. As a side note some graphs are either outdated ( 2015 data) and if you search for actual periods it will come back as not a “trendy” product .

Nicole

Hey Renato, I actually used past 5 year data. I updated this article a week or two ago so it does go up to 2017.

Nicole

Hey James,
Did you end up finding the right business idea for your store?

Nicole

No problem! We just updated it with new niches/product ideas.

Nicole

Haha, thanks Jan. We just updated it with even more product and business ideas.

pancho javier

Hi Nicole

do you think is posible a sale in the 14 days trial at shopify ?

Semih Uzunlar

Thank you Nicole
It’s a very useful content for the group of people called “wantrepreneur” that I’m in 🙂
Always want to be a real entreprenur, but we only “want”. We need more encouraging contents and advices 🙂

Nicole

Hey Semih,
What’s holding you back from becoming an entrepreneur? How can I help encourage you more?

Suzanne Ellis

Good article Nicole- Im looking to open my own e-commerce store, so much to choose from, Do I choose something that I have a passion for or something that will make me money? Ive tried both in bricks and mortar-

Hey Suzanne, sorry for the late reply. When it comes to my own ecommerce store I’ve chosen to focus on what’ll bring in money instead of what I’m passionate about. The upside is that it’s profitable. The downside is that it can be hard to motivate myself some days. The ideal situation is to launch a store you’re passionate about that’s also highly profitable. What type of content do you like learning more about? Which topics excite you? Is there a part of that niche that’s really profitable? Are there any really trendy products within it you see a lot of people buying? That would be my recommendation for a starting point for you.

Greg Berman

Thanks for sharing these amazing and unique startup business ideas to make money. Yes, every successful entrepreneur looks for an idea which should be profitable and work on the long-term basis. These business ideas are really having good opportunities and lots of scope in the market. You can also browse to BusinessPartners, an online business network, to get some more amazing startup business ideas.